1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to endoscope devices, and more particularly to an endoscope device with a smaller image pickup module.
2. Description of Related Art
Endoscopes are a minimally invasive medical instrument used to examine the interior of a bodily organ or performing minor surgery. The instrument may have a rigid or flexible tube for insertion into the body.
Currently, endoscopes devices can be classified as electronic, ultrasonographic, or optical according to their operating principle. Applications of electronic endoscopes can be found in an article entitled “Electronic endoscope system for shape measurement” by Kazuhide et al. published at 16th international conference on pattern recognition. However, the contrast of the image captured by the conventional endoscope device is unsatisfactory, which results in a lower quality image captured by the endoscope device.
What is needed, therefore, is an endoscope device that can provide better image contrast.